"Bob Taylor" wrote in message
...
Ron Natalie wrote:

"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message
...


Ron Natalie wrote:

Frankly, we NEVER touched that lever.

Absolutely! In my 150, it never got turned. After 25+ years in one
position, I
felt that nothing good could happen by moving it.

Yep, unless the plane is on fire...

I turn the fuel valve all the way around on Cessnas before EVERY flight
and teach my students to do
the same. It is a very nice thing to know that this valve can be turned
BEFORE the plane catches
fire. It is also good to know how much force it takes. Of course when
fueling Cessnas, it is best to
have this handle in anything but BOTH because some fuel will cross feed
faster than you can climb down
the latter and scurry to the other side.
Yeah, we carry a pair of pliers and a screwdriver in case anything like
the fuel select handle breaks but we never fool whith the fuel tank select
while in the pattern. That's a pre-descent or in range item. I used to fly
with a wwII guy who would switch from right tank, to Off, let the engine
start to die, and then switch to left tank, as part of his preflight. He
explained that he was checking the fuel feed and fuel select integrity. made
sense, at least he knew that the lever was free and he had feed from both
tanks.
R.Wallace
I teach this on Pipers too. I have had many a student that couldn't turn
the Cherokee fuel selector
to OFF because he/she couldn't figure out the detent without some
coaching. That's not a learning
process you have time for in a real emergency when the fuel needs to be
shut off now.....